Safety equipment and more particularly a safety gate for use with an open door in a mass transit vehicle to prevent a maintenance worker from accidentally falling out the open door are disclosed herein.
Mass transit vehicle doors, for example rail car doors, and particularly doors employed in electrified cars such as subway cars or other mass transit rail cars, are automatically actuated to open and close, as is known in the art. As with any automated or mechanical apparatus the doors require regular maintenance or repair. During maintenance and repair of the doors the vehicle is taken out of service. Often the vehicle is transported to a yard for service. In many cases a vehicle door is opened and maintenance or repair personnel are positioned in the open doorway when working on the door, which exposes the worker to the possibility of falling out the open door, resulting in injury. It would be advantageous, therefore, to have a safety gate that can be installed in the door opening to prevent such falls. It also would be advantageous if the gate were light weight, transportable, easy to install and to remove and if it were easily adaptable to different size openings.
Moreover, the vehicle being serviced or repaired may be parked on rails having an electrified third rail, either on the track or in the yard. It would be advantageous if the safety gate is not electrically conductive, comprised of dielectric material so that inadvertent contact with an electrified rail does not pose a risk of electrocution or system shutdown.